Neil LaBute softens his edges in 'reasons to be pretty'

Wednesday

Say what you will given his reputation as a literary shock jock, lambasted for the misanthropic and misogynistic content of his works over the years.

But Neil LaBute knows his way around the human psyche, even if he often chooses to explore its darker, more treacherous territory.

And in “reasons to be pretty,” he proves brutally discerning once again, as he captures the dynamics and patterns that can ensnare the 20-something-year-old creeping up on 30, when a familiar way of being in the world becomes more than a chafing discomfort.

“It’s about that time in your life after school where you’re kind of cruising along with your same aspirations and habits and friends and not questioning it and something happens that makes you get unstuck from that pattern and those people. You think, ‘Is this my life? Is this what I’m doing? I’m a grown-up,’ ” says Maria Mileaf, who has returned to the Philadelphia Theatre Company, after directing “Ruined” there last year, to close the season with “reasons to be pretty.”

“All the characters in this play have to at a certain point take a stand for themselves. ...That tension with who we want to be in the world and who we are is a definite struggle.”

The play, the final installment in LaBute’s acclaimed trilogy focusing on society’s obsession with physical appearance (following “The Shape of Things” and “Fat Pig”), is onstage now at the Suzanne Roberts Theatre. Nominated for both a Tony Award for Best Play and a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play following its Broadway premiere in 2009 — it was the first of LaBute’s plays to be staged on Broadway — it startled some who’d come to expect only savage cynicism from LaBute, his provocations having previously inspired mini-mid-play exoduses by audience members and even the lashing-out at certain actors after a performance.

But “reasons to be pretty,” which traces the unraveling of two couples’ relationships following a seemingly innocuous remark made by Greg (Daniel Abeles), the protagonist, to describe his girlfriend Steph (Genevieve Perrier), promises a slightly softer bent.

“It’s open to interpretation, but for me, I really feel like there is hope for the protagonist, that he might make some decisions in life moving toward more growth and better choices,” says Perrier. “And Steph ... she sort of comes into her own and makes a decision toward her future that’s positive.”

That’s not to say “reasons” isn’t without viciousness

and vulgarity, and of course LaBute’s typical antihero — the macho male given to callous, cringe-inducing speech and behavior — is in residence here, too.

Paul Felder, who played such a character in Theatre Horizon’s 2010 production of “Fat Pig,” is at it again, bringing a brisk energy and physicality to Kent, Greg’s coworker who sees no reason to curb his base instincts even with a beautiful, pregnant wife (Elizabeth Stanley).

“The way I come at these roles is I don’t judge them. I just play them for who they are,” says Felder, whose recent credits include “Sylvia” at the Act II Playhouse and “The Lieutenant of Inishmore” with Theatre Exile. “Playing these kinds of characters is so much fun, even if people hate them. I get to say all this stuff I would never say ... and these characters — they don’t ask for forgiveness when they say it.”

But rather than revel in the ways these four flounder and repulse, Mileaf believes LaBute, whose works also include the films “In the Company of Men” and “Your Friends & Neighbors,” as well as the plays “The Mercy Seat” and “Bash,” is after a greater intricacy.

“Would I want to be friends with those people or have them at my dinner table or expose them to my children? Not so much. But when I’m thinking about how the world works or why it’s so compelling to act in ways that are against our interest or regressively for our interest, I find his ambition on the part of his characters and his investigations into their dynamics brutally honest. I admire that,” she says. “I always crave theater where you have a strong reaction to it rather than a mediocre reaction to it. If the characters are being driven by things that seem organic to them and honest and specific, then it makes for great drama.

“When the point of view of the play is lacking humanity, then it gets challenging to me as a director. ‘Reasons to be pretty’ has tons of humanity.”

It’s why Perrier, a Barrymore Award winner making her PTC debut, hopes the audience will have compassion for the characters onstage, even if Steph does react in “an intense, animal-like” way to her boyfriend’s unintended slight — “I definitely understand being so hurt that the only way to deal with it is to kind of hurt back,” she says — and even if Kent’s actions are mostly revolting.

To her, LaBute’s unsavory male characters are victims in their own way of what it means to be a man, caged by society’s negative expectations and stereotypes.

“All these people are struggling, whether they’re making the right decisions because of it or not. You feel for every character,” says Felder. “(LaBute) breaks your heart with almost all of these plays and I don’t think this one’s much different.”

A belated coming-of-age tale, “reasons to be pretty” also looks at the challenges of communicating what we mean, as only LaBute can. Characters cut each other off or talk over each other, grasp for just the right word or phrase and repeat others, vacillate with “ums” and “ahs” and let thoughts dangle from frequent ellipses.

“It’s the closest to how I think people actually communicate with each other in the real world. Whether you like the circumstances of his stories or not, you can’t deny that when you listen to his plays, it feels like you’re eavesdropping on a conversation,” says Felder. “As an actor, that’s a lot of fun.”

For all the play’s attendant controversy and the debates it will likely spark among theatergoers, Mileaf hopes the thoughtfulness with which LaBute has written it translates to a bit of introspection for audiences, too.

“It’s a very small vote for being true to yourself, giving yourself permission to articulate goals and have ambition and do things on purpose,” she says. “I feel like we all get stuck — stuck in relationships and stuck in careers and stuck in schedules. You need to have a certain amount of courage to get unstuck and so I’m hoping that, in a quiet way, that’s something the audience can walk away with.”

“reasons to be pretty” opens Wednesday and runs through June 24 at the Suzanne Roberts Theatre, Broad and Lombard streets, Philadelphia. Tickets: $46 to $59. Information: 215-985-0420;

www.PhiladelphiaTheatreCompany.org.

Naila Francis: 215-345-3149;

email: nfrancis@phillyburbs.com;

Twitter: @Naila_Francis

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